Sanjay Malhotra, a career civil servant, has become India’s new central bank governor at a time when the country’s economic growth is slowing and inflation is surging.

India's central bank expectedly kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 6.50% on Friday as it struggles to contain rising inflation without hurting growth in Asia's third-largest economy.

Persistently high inflation has squeezed India's middle class budgets, slowing urban consumption in the last few months and threatening brisk economic growth. India expects the economy to grow at 6.5%-7% in the financial year that ends in March.